Crisis Care Centers Levy approved

April 25, 2023

The Crisis Care Centers initiative will build a network of walk-in centers for people around the region to access mental health care and substance use disorder treatment, build back our recovery bed capacity, and support a strained workforce in this industry.

The Crisis Care Centers Levy will do three things:

1 Create five new regional crisis care centers

Distributed geographically across the county, the centers will provide walk-in access and the potential for short-term stays to help people stabilize, depending on needs, with one center specifically serving youth. Currently there is one 46-bed crisis center for 2.3 million people in our county.

2 Preserve and restore the dramatic loss of residential treatment beds

In 2018, 355 beds providing community-based residential care for people with mental health residential needs existed in King County. Today, only 244 of these beds are available. Currently we've had a loss of one in three of our residential treatment beds in recent years. As of July 2022, people waited an average of 44 days for a mental health residential bed.

3 Grow the behavioral health workforce pipeline

The proposal will create career pathways through apprenticeship programming and access to higher education, credentialing, training, and wrap-around supports. It will also invest in equitable wages for the workforce at crisis care centers. Currently there are historic labor shortages. A 2021 King County survey of member organizations of the King County Integrated Care Network found that job vacancies at community behavioral health agencies were at least double what they were in 2019.